


A Song of Rigor Mortis

by orphan_account



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Implied Rape/Non-con, Nina’s powers, Violence, a little bit sadistic, nina is one with death, not to Nina though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 20:06:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20570117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Nina used to know heartbeats the way she does faces—like that steady, thundering thump of Kaz's surefire disposition and the light pitter of Inej's flighty movements. Or the rapid pick-up of Matthias' pulse whenever Nina speaks to him in her tempting tongue.Now all she knows is the rotten stench of death and a song of lost souls, wailing and pleading to be freed.





	A Song of Rigor Mortis

If it had been a dozen moons earlier, Nina's ears would pick up on the moment the knife plunges into the target's heart. It would’ve been a resounding sound through a lively body, filled with rushing blood and fluids.

The strike is a swift, almost untraceable movement—so fast that Nina’s only sure that the kill was painless, and that it was made by Inej or Kaz. 

Dirtyhand's mouth twitches light and soft, and Nina has her answer. 

(See, Kaz never blinks when he takes a life, but his heart has always quickened a fraction at Inej's seamless displays of skill).

Nina used to think of herself in a proud manner because of this ability of hers—one that let her hone in on the idiosyncrasies of the heart and decipher what it cries out.

She used to know heartbeats the way she does faces—like that steady, thundering thump of Kaz's surefire disposition and the light pitter of Inej's flighty movements. Or, more self-indulgent, the rapid pick-up of Matthias' pulse whenever Nina speaks to him in her tempting tongue.

Now all she knows is the rotten stench of death and a song of lost souls, wailing and pleading to be freed.

It’s different, sensing death like this.

As the knife enters the body of the sorry mercher, she doesn’t notice the absence of a heartbeat, but instead feels the delicious moment the life leaves his eyes. Poetic, she thinks, for a man of almost royalty to die in his prized home.

(Gandoln Traveart, she recalls was his name. She only knows of his status and that his daughter came to them in tears with few garments to cover her scarred body. She spoke to Inej, and somehow Kaz agreed to do this hit for free, as long as they got to steal a portion of the Traveart fortune afterwards. Inej agreed sarcastically, but Nina doesn’t think Kaz acknowledged the joke).

Either way, there’s blood pooling on the stone beneath what used to be a monster but is now nothing but a shell. (That’s one major thing Nina has learned about bodies in these few months: they’re all just shells in the end, and a demon taints the soul not the flesh).

And as Gandoln Traveart becomes simply a puppet, Nina’s skin jitters to life, so similar to the way it did halting the hearts of a thousand soldiers some time ago.

She flinches, attempting to mask this visceral reaction to a bloodied body, with rigor mortis just setting in. It’s scary how far from disgusted she is, and she’s determined to forget the emotions. 

But she can’t ignore the power thrumming beneath her fingertips.

A Heartrender’s power is an awareness—the ability to single out a single voice and manipulate its rhythm and strength. But this, whatever this is, is something else entirely.

Nina senses this dead flesh as an extension of her own body, like this once-monster is a part of her. His veins are connected hers by some invisible string, and if she wanted, she could yank him up and force him to dance and bend however she liked.

She thinks all of this is a split second, and gulps down a craving for a drug that she has tried so hard to erase from her system.

“You okay, Nina?”

Wylan’s words are as earnest as usual, and she tears her eyes away from the berry red trail that the body leaves while Kaz drags it to the fireplace.

“Peachy, Wylan,” Nina flashes her loveliest smile, “Why do you ask?”

“Nothing,” Wylan rubs his neck (and Nina knows there’s a pulse there, one she’ll only be able to know once it’s gone entirely), “You just seemed a little shaken.”

“Well, not all of us delight in stabbing people in the throat,” she looks pointedly at Kaz.

The man in question only smiles wryly, setting the fireplace alight. Inej rolls her eyes from the corner (Nina finds that she tends to gravitate to the empty spaces in rooms, yet doesn’t take any of it up. The only way Nina knows she is there is because of the direction that Kaz tilts his head and the smell of copper droplets under her hand).

The fire roars to life soon after.

“Jesper always says he’s ‘peachy’ when he’s on the verge of placing a thousand kruge on the table,” Wylan adds, watching their leader toss the body into the fire. It reminds Nina of a rag doll.

“Sorry to disappoint, dear. Sometimes ‘peachy’ just means fine,” she smiles softer now, toeing the line between happy and bittersweet, and pretending that a part of her isn’t burning away with Gandoln Traveart’s flesh.

The crows sneak home thereafter, Inej covering their tracks expertly, and the others keeping an eye out for guards (Nina notes that Kaz doesn’t mention any money. It may be because the daughter’s bed appears hardly used at all, and father keeps an array of weapons and rope in his room). 

Nina laughs with her friends that night, calling the hit a success and clinking her glass with Jesper’s. They begin to run through the plan for the next mission, but Nina steps outside into the the not-quite morning air.

Her nostrils flare with an inhale, and she can smell the sweet scent of rot on her nose. A couple of horrid thoughts flicker in her head.

One is that Nina really can’t hear hearts anymore:  
that she’ll never giggle at the spring of Matthias’ heartbeat in her proximity or know when Inej is having an off day.

And two: the stench of death is starting to become more and more appealing.

And so, she walks to a plot of land where she knows the Dregs buried many bodies, and feels herself become much more than she was before, just for a little bit.


End file.
